Conference Summary
| Overall | Bowls | SRS | Polls | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Conference | Schs | G | W | L | Pct | G | W | L | Pct | SRS | SOS | Pre | Final | Champion |
| 1 | Big Ten Conference | 11 | 127 | 77 | 53 | .592 | 7 | 5 | 2 | .714 | 8.40 | 5.33 | 5 | 7 | Wisconsin |
| 2 | Southeastern Conference | 12 | 135 | 81 | 61 | .570 | 8 | 4 | 4 | .500 | 7.71 | 5.22 | 5 | 7 | Alabama |
| 3 | Atlantic Coast Conference | 9 | 101 | 57 | 48 | .543 | 5 | 2 | 3 | .400 | 4.36 | 3.20 | 3 | 2 | Florida State |
| 4 | Big 12 Conference | 12 | 137 | 79 | 63 | .556 | 6 | 3 | 3 | .500 | 4.06 | 2.02 | 5 | 4 | Nebraska |
| 5 | Pacific-10 Conference | 10 | 116 | 60 | 58 | .508 | 5 | 1 | 4 | .200 | 2.17 | 1.94 | 4 | 1 | Stanford |
| 6 | Big East Conference | 8 | 90 | 47 | 46 | .505 | 4 | 2 | 2 | .500 | 2.01 | 1.82 | 2 | 2 | Virginia Tech |
| 7 | Mountain West Conference | 8 | 88 | 50 | 41 | .549 | 3 | 1 | 2 | .333 | 1.19 | -0.75 | 0 | 0 | BYU, Colorado State, Utah |
| 8 | Conference USA | 9 | 99 | 51 | 51 | .500 | 3 | 1 | 2 | .333 | 0.69 | 0.29 | 0 | 1 | Southern Mississippi |
| 9 | Western Athletic Conference | 8 | 90 | 44 | 48 | .478 | 3 | 2 | 1 | .667 | -4.85 | -3.42 | 0 | 0 | Fresno State, Hawaii, Texas Christian |
| 10 | Independent | 7 | 79 | 32 | 47 | .405 | 0 | 0 | 0 | -5.80 | -2.53 | 1 | 0 | ||
| 11 | Big West Conference | 7 | 78 | 36 | 43 | .456 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | -8.34 | -5.69 | 0 | 0 | Boise State |
| 12 | Mid-American Conference | 13 | 145 | 65 | 81 | .445 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1.000 | -11.26 | -8.68 | 0 | 1 | Marshall |
Consensus All-Americans